Hokies adjust to economy

But in a recent conversation, athletic director Jim Weaver said his department is scrambling to make ends meet.

For example, during the 2009-10 academic year, operating budgets for all teams, money-makers football and men’s basketball included, are frozen. In most years, outlays increase 5-10 percent, according to Weaver.

Non-revenue sports will not travel west of the Mississippi River for non-conference competition, and will attempt to stay within a two-state radius. The football team, cue the violins, will travel by bus rather than charter jet to its Nov. 14 game at Maryland, a one-day savings of at least $75,000.

“The downturn economy has an impact on each institution in a different way,” Weaver said. “We have spent countless hours as a senior administrative staff going over things. I’d rather do (what we’re doing) than cut a sport or cut some jobs or furlough some people. We’ve not done any of the above. We’re very proud about that.”

“We don’t have a lot of turnover,” Weaver said. “People who work at Virginia Tech like working here, like living in this community and aren’t out looking for jobs for the most part. We’ve been blessed in that sense.”

Most encouraging to Weaver, the Hokies have experienced no decline in ticket demand. Men’s basketball season tickets sold out last season, as did football’s for 2009.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” Weaver said. “We feel like we’re (connected) with the best multi-media rights company in the country in ISP Sports. The (ACC) has really taken a hard look at its expenses so that the revenue distribution shares for each institution do not diminish from the projected schedule.”

Indeed, the ACC suspended printing media guides and moved its annual football kickoff from a resort in Tampa, Fla., cite of this season’s championship game, to a Greensboro, N.C., golf-and-hotel complex less than a mile from the conference office.

Member schools depend on the conference for more than $10 million annually, which in Virginia Tech’s case represents approximately 20 percent of revenue. In 2007-08, Tech reported $49,890,014 in athletics expenses, $56,029,174 in revenue.